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TUSCANY:WANDERING THE BACK ROADS VOLUME I VOLUME II Essay, "Matters of Choice and Discovery" by Robert Sobieszek, Curator of Photography and Deputy Director, The land of Tuscany has nurtured and inspired artists for centuries. In Tuscany: Wandering the Back Roads, Volume I, by Paula Chamlee, and Volume II, by Michael A. Smith, the glorious tradition continues and is even enhanced in their deeply personal and beautiful photographs of one of the most alluring and romantic places in the world. In the spring of 1999 and 2000, and in the fall of 2001, the photographers Michael A. Smith and Paula Chamlee shipped their old Land Rover to Europe, after configuring it to accommodate their large-format camera equipment and camping gear. They then drove to Italy, where they traveled together, yet worked separately while exploring the landscape and the small towns and villages of Tuscany—each recording their own visual responses to a land they had come to love. During their travels and adventures, Smith and Chamlee photographed from the quarries in the Carrara region in the north to the old Etruscan towns in the south, and from the Val di Chiana and Cortona in the east to the Island of Elba off the coast to the west. Their photographs, full of warmth and life, yet demanding in their complex visual elements, are the culmination of those three extensive trips. Selections from each of the photographers are here collected in this extraordinary two-volume set of books. Chamlee’s 8 x 10, 5 x 7, and 4 x 5-inch photographs are presented in Volume I, along with an essay by the noted Curator of Photography, Robert Sobieszek, a foreword by the well-known writer, Ferenc Máté, and a preface by the photographers. Volume II is a long-format book and contains Smith’s 8 x 20-inch photographs. To insure the exacting standards that are a hallmark of Lodima Press, every detail in the production of these exquisite books was supervised by the photographers. The reproductions of the photographs, in 600-line screen quadtone and printed on heavy coated stock by Salto2 in Belgium, achieve unmatched fidelity to the original prints. Sturdy French-fold dust jackets protect and complete the elegant production of these fine books. From the essay, Matters of Choice and Discovery, by Robert Sobieszek “Chamlee sets up poetic resonances . . . visual sonnets of felt sensations comprised of shapes and their repetitions, textures and their echoes, and all artfully considered and balanced. . . . each image is a doorway, a portal through which one enters a very personally seen set of relationships. It is not about entering the Tuscan landscape; it is about entering Chamlee’s images.” “What Smith captures so majestically throughout his book is a symphony made up of subtle, nuanced tones, textures, flows, and rhythms carefully framed within the scenic panoramas. [His] vast horizontal views suggest many narratives, journeys through the subjective terrains depicted, meanderings and wanderings of mind and eye. His scenes are like musical scores — arrangements of pictorial notes across the view.” |
About the Authors
Paula Chamlee has traveled extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe making her photographs. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, and her photographs have been widely exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions. Her photographs are in over a score of museum collections, including those of the Library of Congress, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas (Austin), and in numerous private collections in the United States and abroad. Her monographs include Natural Connections: Photographs by Paula Chamlee (1994), High Plains Farm (1996), and San Francisco: Twenty Corner Markets and One in the Middle of the Block (1997). Also published in 2004 is another book of her photographs from Tuscany: Madonnina. She lives in the country in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with her husband, the photographer Michael A. Smith. Michael A. Smith’s photographs have been exhibited widely and are in the permanent collections of over 100 museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. Smith has received numerous grants and awards as well as commissions to photograph American cities. His first book, Landscapes 1975–1979, was awarded Le Grand Prix du Livre at the International Festival of Photography in Arles, France. His next book, Michael A. Smith: A Visual Journey—Photographs from Twenty-Five Years, was published in 1992 on the occasion of his twenty-five year retrospective exhibition at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House. His third book, The Students of Deep Springs College, was published in 2000. He lives in the country in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, the photographer Paula Chamlee. Robert A. Sobieszek is Curator of Photography and Deputy Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Before joining LACMA in 1990, he served in various curatorial positions and as Director of Photographic Collections at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. He has graduate degrees in art history from Stanford and Columbia universities. He has published more than ten books and more than fifty essays on the history and art of photography. His most recent book was Ghost in the Shell: Photography and the Human Soul (MIT Press, 1999). Mr. Sobieszek passed away in 2005. Ferenc Máté is the author of The Hills of Tuscany as well as 10 other titles. He lives with his wife and son in an old farmhouse in Tuscany. |
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